Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces that it has completed the acquisition of Soteica Visual Mesa (SVM), a leading energy management technology provider, further delivering on a number of key objectives of Yokogawa's Transformation 2017 mid-term business plan, namely, expansion of Yokogawa's advanced solution business, focusing on customers and creating new value.

This announcement marks completion of the SVM acquisition as a wholly-owned subsidiary and initiation of the integration of SVM and the cloud-based Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) provider Industrial Knowledge (IK) into KBC Advanced Technologies (KBC), which was acquired by Yokogawa in April 2016. The IK business unit was established to enhance the cloud-based advanced solution business based on the technology of Industrial Evolution (IE), which was acquired by Yokogawa in December 2015. A pioneer in the use of cloud-based solutions in the process industries, IE developed a market-leading real-time DaaS solution that is deployed at many of the world's major energy and chemical companies.

Yokogawa's acquisition of SVM follows an earlier minority equity investment in SVM made in December 2012. SVM has a solid track record in the energy management solutions (EMS) field, and provides production accounting and scheduling solutions to the refining industry.

After acquiring KBC, Yokogawa formed a post-merger integration team that has been charged with the task of identifying various measures and setups that will create synergy and derive maximum benefit from the integration of the companies' operations, and thereby enhance our ability to offer new value to our customers. As a result of their deliberations, Yokogawa has decided to integrate the operations of Soteica, a leading company in the EMS field, and Industrial Knowledge, a business unit with expertise in advanced cloud solutions, with those of KBC.

By leveraging KBC's premier energy consulting and Visual Mesa, SVM's best-in-class real-time energy optimization technology, it is anticipated that the combined entity will be able to expand its position in the rapidly growing EMS market in the process industries.

In the immediate term, SVM's advanced Visual Mesa utility optimization software combined with KBC's premium energy consultancy will provide comprehensive and best-in-class energy management solutions, underpinned by leading technologies and human performance improvement. Over the longer term, this acquisition supports KBC's vision of seamlessly integrating utility system and supply chain optimization into KBC's industry-leading process simulation platform for hydrocarbon processing facilities, Petro-SIM™.

KBC, SVM, and IK will be led by KBC Chief Executive Officer, Andy Howell, and will be integrated under the KBC brand. This will significantly enhance KBC's solutions portfolio and the energy management solutions business, enhance KBC's ability to develop new cloud-based services, and accelerate KBC's efforts to create and sustain new value for customers.

Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK) has acquired leading systems integrator MAVERICK Technologies to expand domain knowledge and help deliver innovative control and information solutions to customers in industries such as chemical, food and beverage, and oil and gas. The acquisition significantly strengthens Rockwell Automation’s expertise in key process and batch applications to help its customers realize greater productivity and improved global competitiveness through process control and information management solutions.

“Industrial control and information solutions are most effective when they result from close collaboration between a knowledgeable supplier and the user,” said Ken Champa, Rockwell Automation senior vice president of Control Products and Solutions. “The combination of our global industrial automation leadership with MAVERICK’s platform-independent domain expertise will help our customers reduce complexity and realize unprecedented productivity.”

The acquisition supports the Rockwell Automation growth strategy to help customers increase global competitiveness by adopting The Connected Enterprise – a vision that connects information across the plant floor with the entire enterprise to drive new business value. This is particularly important to process customers whose uptime and continuous performance are critical.

“We will continue to deliver our domain expertise, now with the power of a Fortune 500 industrial automation leader at our side,” said Paul Galeski, MAVERICK founder and CEO. “This creates the best combination available to help uncover the benefits of information that drives performance in process industries.”

MAVERICK is located in Columbia, IL with 21 locations in the U.S. and over 300 engineers and technical salespeople. In July 2016, it was recognized by The Silicon Review magazine as one of the “2016 50 Best Companies to Watch.”

Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces that it has established the Architecture Development Division California, an organization that is dedicated to the development of architecture for the industrial IoT (IIoT). This division commenced operations on November 1.

To improve operational efficiency and productivity by using the IIoT, a robust and flexible architecture is required. For this purpose, Yokogawa has set up the Architecture Development Division California to pursue the development of core technologies, and it will function as a unit of the Marketing Headquarters' Business Development Center. To keep up with new technologies developed every day in the field of the IIoT and to facilitate close coordination with partner companies, the new division is based on the West Coast of the United States, which is a center of research and development activity by numerous technology firms. The new division is staffed by engineers from Yokogawa who have an extensive knowledge of Yokogawa systems and services, and locally recruited engineers who are conversant in a range of IT fields. To start, the division is located at the engineering office of a partner company, and it is scheduled to open its own office in April 2017.

The division will later add functions for planning services that use the IIoT and cloud computing, and it is expected that the number of staff will be increased to around 50 over the next five years. With this new division, Yokogawa will accelerate its development of cutting-edge IIoT architecture with the aim of offering its customers safer and more user-friendly solutions.

Rockwell Automation has acquired Automation Control Products (ACP), a leading provider in centralized thin client, remote desktop and server management software. ACP’s two core products, ThinManager® and Relevance®, provide manufacturing and industrial leaders with visual display and software solutions to manage information and streamline workflows for a more connected manufacturing environment.

This acquisition supports the Rockwell Automation growth strategy to help customers increase global competitiveness through The Connected Enterprise – a vision that connects information across the plant floor to the rest of the enterprise. It is accelerated by the Industrial Internet of Things and advances in technologies, such as data analytics, remote monitoring, and mobility.

“Today’s plant engineers turn to our technology innovation and domain expertise to help improve their manufacturing quality and reliability while increasing productivity,” said Frank Kulaszewicz, senior vice president of Architecture and Software, Rockwell Automation. “With ACP’s industry-leading products now in our portfolio, we can provide new capabilities for workers as the manufacturing environment becomes more digital and connected.”

ThinManager centralizes the management and visualization of content to every facet of a modern manufacturing operation, from the control room to the end user. It streamlines workflows and allows users to reduce hardware operation and maintenance costs. Relevance extends the ThinManager functionality through proprietary location-based technology, enabling users’ secure mobile access to content and applications from anywhere.

“We are a perfect addition to Rockwell Automation’s industrial automation offerings that aim to increase reliability, productivity and security as well as lower energy and maintenance costs while implementing sustainable technology for leading global manufacturers,” said Matt Crandell, CEO of ACP. “We are confident that our customers will quickly see the value from our two organizations working to address their needs together.”